Caked.

I baked a mocha cake yesterday, so I could use the leftover icing I made.

It tastes like cake. So I guess that went well. Oddly enough I'm racking my head, trying to remember what Ms Brigino taught us about baking conversions and what not. I never thought I'd live to see the day when I'd look for that dratted piece of index card I wrote the formula on. I must've thrown it away. Oh well.

Anyway, the cake looked like this last night. Right now it's down to one-fourth of its original size. Not bad.

A World Handwriting Contest! Who knew?!

And in accordance with the title, I must now direct you to

http://www.global2000.net/handwritingrepair/WHAC/

So that you can see for yourself.


I got that at:

http://www.contest.googlepages.com/

Well. At least ads are good for something sometimes.

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Worldwide contests makes me feel really small.

AI, JB, BB

This is going to be one extensive post, so slap me if I'm becoming redundundant. :))

On one particular Wednesday a few months back, this guy, a bartender, walked in, sang his piece and got the golden ticket. Exactly one moment after he left the room, I turned to my sister, who had been watching with me, and said to her, "What's his name again?"

"David something e. Cook ata. Naalala ko kasi parang kapangalan niya yung trabaho niya, haha."

"Ahhh."

And that was how he became my favorite. I liked him even before everything, and I wanted him to win even before the world witnessed what he was capable of. He sailed through Hollywood week, got in through the Top 24, and with much confidence, I knew he could stay on for a long time. It was pretty easy to lose him in the crowd, what with David Archuleta and all, but Cook was pretty good and I was baffled to not meet anybody else who liked him as much as I did. (Well if anyone reading liked Cook as far back as the Top 24, wave your hand where I can see you.) And I mean, I really really really really really really really really like freaking really liked this guy, burger belly and all.

So the competition went on and stuff. People watched, Americans voted. And then the Mariah Carey week happened. And that, my friends, is just one example of his genius. I think he blew everyone's socks off with his rendition. After that, I was just glad that people began to sit up and take notice.

I won't write too much like an appalling little fangirl, but when it came down to the final two, well, I can't say that I haven't been waiting for the match-up since forever. Archuleta, as Simon said, picked better songs for last night. Cook's performances, on the other hand, while strong enough on their own, paled in comparison to Archuleta's song choices. And gosh, I was just crushed about it. I have never felt so... sad about any reality tv contest since the Cho Brothers got eliminated once upon an Amazing Race season ago. (It's actually pathetic how involved I am. :|) On the bright side, you can't predict something that hasn't happened yet, so I just hoped that Cook's artistry and originality for the whole season (and he is the most consistent performer I've watched so far) would be enough to tip the scales in his favor.

Just so you know, I had bad dreams throughout the night. No, not of Archuleta winning-- that was a minor thing-- but of actually missing the results show. I dreamed of waking up at 10 am and learning horrible news, and then I re-dreamed the dream and instead saw myself waking up at 4 am, to be doomed to watch a never ending results show that will never have results. How perverse. I often have those get-caught-with-your-underpants-off type of dreams when I'm nervous.

Anyway.

I woke up exactly on time for the results show, thank goodness. It was one long and entertaining spectacle. If they wanted the tension off for a while, they succeeded in doing that. It was only when the moment of truth was there, finally there, that I felt a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. I hated the suspense. I glumly expected Ryan to read Archuleta's name, but then, I have to smugly say that David Cook, roughly twelve hours ago, became the American Idol.

And I couldn't help mentioning this fact to my family once every fifteen minutes, interspersed with sincere apologies for having to be so annoying, and telling them to punch me when they felt like it. They didn't though; they just had this deadpan face (accompanied occasionally by a roll of their eyes) whenever I was bothering them. Again. And again. And again.

There will be life after Idol, but I will miss it.

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I went to JB's debut last Monday (incidentally, it was also James Blunt's concert). I may not post the pictures anymore, since I didn't take enough to contribute what people would think is a decent album, but here's JB, in all her goddess-like splendor:

Pictures available upon request, I suppose.

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And finally, BB stands for Baby Brownie, a vintage Kodak cam we recently dug up again. By vintage, I mean that the most recent date I found on the bottom of this baby is 1942. I used to play with this as a kid, but even now I can't figure it out. It's a sweet little thing though. I'm thinking it's a point-and-shoot camera, since I can't see through the viewfinder, nor through the round red window at the back.

This uses black and white film, I think. Does anybody have any idea how to run this thing, in theory at least? I think it's kinda... broken. Haha, must've been all the playing way back.

Airbending Aangadoodle

There's a cartoon on Nickelodeon called Avatar: The Last Airbender, which they originally intended for its 6-11 year-old demographic. I am apparently part of that demographic, although I am nearly 18. *cough cough* I originally didn't get the whole anime+Western sensibilities movement, since I staunchly believed that anime at least should be drawn by the original creators and so should be left alone by the Westerners, who usually execute the style in a rather appalling way. Totally Spies and Marvin Mysteries (ok, suki nga ako ng Disney :|), which I assume are made by the same people since they have the same drawing style, both really annoy me because they are lame and sadly unfunny. So when I happened to watch Avatar at Nickelodeon I was initially unimpressed; on a minor note, the dubbing bothered me a little, because Aang's voice disconcertingly reminded me of my little cousin's :)). Not that it was bad, but the familiarity of the sound often made it seem like the voice was disconnected from the character, for me at least anyway.

About a month ago my 4 and 7 year-old nieces borrowed the second season from my older cousin, and having nothing better to do this summer, I decided to have another go at the series and borrowed the cd from them.

Well, the second season definitely proved itself worthy with every episode I watched. And interestingly enough, not only did my two other sisters like it (which is rare, considering that this is a cartoon we're talking about), we even went ahead and watched the third season online.

In summary, it is a great series. Watching it made me feel like I was watching a thirty-minute Hayao Miyazaki creation. It had that slight flavor of Japanese animation, coupled with the best of American sensibilities in directing, writing and story development. The Western influence kept the Japanese tendency for extreme exaggeration at bay, while the Asian aesthetics spun the story into something entirely new and unconceived before. And I liked the diverse ethnicities that looked like real people. And yeah, I liked the fact that hair in this series actually grows, a feat I have never seen before in other cartoons. :) I suppose it's not something everyone's going to sit down and watch and discuss with me, but hey, I like it for the same reason/s a lot of people like, say, Pokemon: it's appealed to me in a way other cartoons haven't before.

I drew this on my white board, on a whim. I wasn't intending to try drawing any of the characters, since I liked the animation too much to touch it. Besides, I wanted to keep the integrity of their art intact by not messing around with it too much. Oh well, I thought, one wouldn't hurt. So I went ahead and drew one.

Which I eventually colored digitally.

Which eventually turned into this.

It's predictably in a static position. The composition is pretty lame, but there's not much you can do with a small white board and a fat marker without gouging someone's eye out. Still, it's wonderful to draw something after being in hiatus for so long. My Deviantart account is gathering dust somewhere, which is quite a shame, but I may now pluck up the courage to post something there.

There's something to be done about that orange block of a shirt/cape thing, which perhaps I will decide tomorrow.